The Indian cricket team will open its 2019 ICC World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5.
The official and complete schedule for the 10-team competition to be held in England will be released on Thursday by the ICC.
All eyes will of course be on the India-Pakistan clash with the arch-rivals currently limited to playing each other only in multi-team tournaments due to ongoing political tensions between the two countries.
That match has been scheduled to take place on June 16 at Old Trafford in Manchester according to a senior BCCI official.
Interestingly, the India-Pakistan clash has usually been the opening fixture for both teams when it comes to ICC events but that will not be the case in the 2019 edition of the World Cup.
India and Pakistan will square-off at Manchester on June 16.
The ICC’s Chief Executives (CEC) meeting is currently ongoing in Kolkata and will come to a conclusion on Friday. India were earlier slated to open their World Cup campaign on June 2 but this has date has now been altered due to the Lodha Committee’s recommendations that a 15-day gap be maintained between the IPL and India’s international assignments.
“The 2019 IPL will be played between March 29 and May 19. But we need to maintain a 15-day gap and World Cup starts on May 30. Therefore as per a 15-day gap, we could have only played on June 5. Earlier, we were scheduled to start on June 2 but we couldn’t have played on that day,” a senior BCCI official was quoted as saying by the PTI (Press Trust of India) on the condition of anonymity.
“South Africa are our first opponents. The CEC agreed and the matter has been referred to the ICC board,” the official went on to add.